Unsafe in politicians hands
By Dominic Opaka
| Dec. 20, 2016
We are responsible for what becomes of our leaders. The attitude of our leaders is determined by our attitude towards them. A nation of ignorant people will produce a government of evil people daring to destroy the nation at will. This is absolutely true to what is currently happening in our country.As Kenyan we are ignorant and this has made us have an evil government that does not care about us. We are uncomfortable in our own country but we can’t say it due to fear of being branded as traitors working in cohorts with foreigners. We are a nation that believes leaders are not supposed to be asked questions or held accountable. We are a nation that is afraid, to tell the truth, and show our unhappiness and anger towards our leaders. We are happy to help our leaders to cover their own mistakes however grand they are under the banner of ‘Our community is being attacked.’
Kenyans would rather keep quiet than talk about their true, painful feelings. We pretend to love the government but at the same time complain in undertones of what they haven’t done. We dance and sing praises around our leaders and give them an impression of how great they are. We fear to be the lone dissent voice. What we forget is that you being dissent does not mean you are disloyal. Telling our leaders that they are wrong should never ever be confused for disloyalty or disrespect. Respect must be earned. When will Kenyans wake from their deep slumber? What kind of people are we to be snoring while our leaders are busy breaking into our safe to steal our money?
The local primary school is dilapidated out of negligence; there is no dispensary or accessible roads in your village, our youths gaze idly without jobs from dawn to evening and farmers are struggling with low prices for their produce. But you find nothing wrong when President Kenyatta brings with him a whole cabinet and a dozen political sycophants and raise false hopes. We clap in great ululations and exaggerated excitement as though the government is doing us a favor. Patients are suffering due to lack of Doctors yet we find nothing wrong when the president ignores the plight of the patients and spends his entire time campaigning. We must get it in our heads loud and clear that no government does its citizenry a favor by sending it to schools, building roads, health facilities and even reopening factories that once flourished but closed due to corruption and poor economic policies. What the government is doing is exactly what it’s expected of it.Kenyans must get it that what the government spends is actually the tax payers money; hence you don’t go around clapping and hero worshipping when someone returns your own money. Kenyans must equally know that leaders come and go and when they do so they don’t take the national purse with them.
It is irresponsibility of the highest order to think only people opposed to the government would raise issues against it.Kenya is a peculiar society that thinks if you don’t support the government then you are automatically in the opposition. We forget that we all have a collective responsibility to hold this government to account because when the economy is messed up either through corruption or bad policies the effects won’t choose one side and leave the other. We don’t speak against the evils at the grass root institutions because we want to be in good books or we fear to upset our kinsmen. We want to wait for Raila Odinga or Boniface Mwangi to tell them what’s happening. We forget that we too have got a voice. Leaders come and go but the country remains. It is for this reason that we need to preserve our country for future generations that will come long after the current leaders are gone.